Putting the Pieces Together
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1106a: If waking up with a monster of a hangover wasn't enough, Quinn, Brittany, and Santana find another surprise, etched to their skin. - Anniversary cycle day 14 of 21, shift A


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 52nd cycle. Now cycle 53!_

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_**THIRD ANNIVERSARY CYCLE: **It's late October again, and within this cycle I will be completing my third year of daily gleekathon stories and commencing a fourth! As in previous years, this means special things happening. I've selected my favorite stories from throughout the year, and I'll be treating them to something special. In previous years this included Prequel, Sequel, and POV Swap, and then Additional Scenes and Alternate Endings. This year I'm adding two new treatments: Genre Swap (I think that's pretty straightforward) and Element Change (I change one thing in the story, see how it affects the rest). Note that in both these cases and some of the others, there may excerpts directly transferred from the story it references. Also, since this year saw the addition of 'shift days', and since I suck at picking, I have selected 42 stories, to be treated two per day! So here we go!_

_**This story** is a Sequel to Past Ink & Present, a Trinity series story, originally posted on May 9 2012._

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_**This is a double shift day.** There will be one more upload today: One Like Any Other._

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**"Putting the Pieces Together"  
(Older) Quinn, Santana/Brittany  
Trinity series extra  
_(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)_  
**

If they'd had work the next day, or even a flight home, then the way they had woken up that morning might have been a problem, but as luck would have it, they were completely free. It didn't make it any more pleasant to awaken to this particular hangover, but at least they weren't expected anywhere, and if there was ever a moment where a good thing, as small as it was, was to be appreciated, then a morning of pounding headaches, confusion, and the lingering taste of something nasty would have to be it.

Quinn had awakened, tugging the pillow from under her head so to squeeze it over her face and ears, cancelling out whatever light and noise would dare assault her. She wasn't even sure where she was anymore except that it definitely wasn't home, since she knew what her bed felt like, and this wasn't it. Her reflex was then to check for clothes, and she breathed out to find she was still wearing some… Still… She braved the light to open her eyes and squint around the room and make sure she was alone. Once she did, quickly confirming she was alone, she also saw she was in a hotel room, and then she remembered where she was, in Phoenix, with Santana and Brittany, on a job, waiting to return home to New York…

She flopped on to her back with a sigh, and then… she cried out. She snapped upright, her head lurching for her troubles, while her hands reached out behind her back, looking to find the source of her discomfort. She wasn't sure how to get to it, but she knew it was there, and then… she winced. "Okay, I just need to…" she mumbled to herself, reaching to steady herself on the nightstand, standing and teetering to her bathroom's mirror. She turned around, pulling her shirt over her head and looking over her shoulder. Her eyes were heavy still, but then she could make out… something… "What the hell…" she meant to speak, but it came off as a shocked yelp. She took a deep breath, feeling like she could be sick at any second. That looked kind of… permanent… whatever it was.

She had stomped her way out of her room, finding her way to the closed door of their suite's other room. She wasn't sure what state of dress or undress she would find them in, but they had to talk, they had to tell her… how she'd ended up with a weird sort of tattoo on her back. So she started hammering at the door, opening it without waiting, but keeping her eyes closed as she went.

"Hey! Wake up! Hey!" she pounded her hand against the wall, and a moment later was greeted with cacophony.

"Grab food, I'll get the cat!" was Brittany's reaction to the rough wake up call.

"Who's got a death wish?" Santana sounded like she could raise hell.

"Are you dressed? Tell me you're dressed," Quinn paid no mind.

"Quinn? What the hell!" Santana groaned.

"What's happening?" Brittany asked, her voice straining against her headache. "Why are your eyes closed?" she looked to the blonde standing there.

"Relax, we're dressed," Santana frowned, "What do you think goes on in h… Don't answer that," she pointed, to both of them, while Quinn opened her eyes. "And you're one to talk," she nodded to the bra-clad Quinn. They may not have been fully dressed, but it was enough so Quinn could carry on with her crusade. The pair of them, still waking up, in as dishevelled of a state, were lying in a tangled heap, but once she had her eyes opened, Quinn saw, somewhere between dismay and relief, that she wasn't alone in her morning discovery. She spotted a very similar mark on both their backs, Santana's near her hip and Brittany's near her shoulder.

"You want to explain this?" she turned around, and the pair of them reacted at seeing the tattoo.

"When did you get that?" Santana asked.

"Looks cute," Brittany commented as they sat up and she leaned to Santana's shoulder.

"I don't know, probably the same time you got yours," she walked over, picking up one each of their hands and guiding them to their respective tattoos.

"Oh…" Santana turned to Brittany, seeing hers, while the blonde did the same. "How much did we drink last night?" she asked, and none of them really had any idea.

They had gotten up, calling for room service to bring them whatever they could to soothe the angry beast that was their hangover, hoping maybe this would help them remember.

"Let me see," Santana went up to Brittany as they sat on the couch, and the blonde hair was swept to the side. Santana inspected the ink lines. "What is it even supposed to be?" she frowned, confused.

"I don't know," Brittany told her, eyes blinking.

"Hey, don't fall asleep on me here," Santana gave her shoulders a nudge.

"Sorry, can't help it," she breathed.

One by one in turn they had inspected one another's tattoos. There was no denying the three pieces were related, and it was Quinn who pointed out they sort of fit together, but beyond that they were just clueless.

They'd been trying to figure it all out for over an hour, when Santana's pointed glance drew Quinn's attention, finding her staring at Brittany's chest. "Do you need me to leave?"

"What? No, I…" she rolled her eyes at her before turning back to her fiancée. "Britt, what's that in your bra?" she nodded. Brittany gave her a look. "No, I don't mean those, there's something…" she pointed, and Brittany looked down, feeling for it and then reaching in. She pulled out, of all things, a coaster.

"How did you not know you had that in there?" Quinn asked.

"Had other things on my mind," she defended herself before turning the coaster over. "Hey!" she blinked, showing them. "It's the…" she pointed over her shoulder. Santana snatched up the coaster, staring at it like it felt familiar to her, but she couldn't place it. Brittany took it back, looking at the slightly shakier version of their tattoos, locked in as one whole, for a good few minutes, and then she gasped. "I drew this!" she announced. "It's us!"

"It is?" Quinn's eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, yeah," Brittany promised, putting the coaster on the table. Just as she had the night before – even if she couldn't remember it – she explained the design to the other two, how it was meant to be the three of them, with their arms around one another. She pointed to her section, with the small arms to indicate her sneaky vocation. She showed Santana's, with the arms in the middle, looking out for both the others. And she pointed to the last section, for Quinn, with the biggest arms, overlooking all of them and their plans, their jobs. "Who decided we should get them as tattoos though?" she asked, looking to the others.

"Sounds like something you would do," Santana nodded to Quinn.

"Me? Seriously?" she laughed, immediately cringing at her still pounding head.

"Does it matter whose idea it was? I like them," Brittany smiled. "No one will ever know what it means except us unless we tell them, so… it's just for us," she reasoned.

"Sounds good to me," Santana beamed, reaching to give her hand a squeeze.

"Yeah, I guess it does…" Quinn gave her approval as well. Once the shock and the pain subsided, the sentiment remained, and to know she shared this with her best friends… that was all that mattered.

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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